


The Cyclone Trap

by WeBuiltThePyramids



Category: Scorpion (TV 2014)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-19
Updated: 2018-06-06
Packaged: 2019-04-24 21:17:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 21,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14363880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WeBuiltThePyramids/pseuds/WeBuiltThePyramids
Summary: “So...what?  We hope Florence’s crush fades, hope she tells everyone that, hope they get their heads out of their asses and talk to each other and hope that they agree to be a team again before some innocent person dies because one of these two teams are down a few essential roles?  That’s a lot of hoping, Ralph.”





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So I have a larger, more substantial fic that will be coming out once we know the fate of the show. Depending on what that is, that larger fic is either going to be "here's an idea of what could happen next year" or "hey this is my idea for season five and if you like it feel free to make it your headcanon." But on Nikki's Instagram the other day, a few of us suggested that it would be fun if this happened next year, and she liked the idea, and I thought hey, here's another idea of something to write, especially while we hang in this limbo. So here we go.

"Hey, Patty! Over here!"

She looked around, seeming confused, so Ralph stood up while continuing to wave. Her eyes fell on him, and she smiled. "Hey, Ralph!"

"Are you waiting for Sylvester?" He asked as she came over and joined him on the bench.

"Yeah. We're going downtown at ten. Or rather, whenever he gets out of the meeting since it's already 9:59."

"I'm sure they'll be done soon. They've been in there a solid half hour. Most of their contracts are worked out in that time, and this one doesn't seem to be on...the other group's radar, so less competition."

Patty shrugged. "It's his commitment downtown. So if we're late, it's his tardy, not mine."

"Relaxing a bit more nowadays, huh?"

She shrugged again. "Well, a lot of things are different."

Ralph nodded. They sat in silence, staring at the people going by. One was walking a dog. It wasn't the dog they rescued from the cistern, but it looked similar.

Ralph looked back at Patty. "My mom doesn't let me help. Even on the easy jobs. I barely know what's going on."

"That sucks."

He bit his lip. "You see Sylvester almost every day. How is he?"

"He's having a hard time." Patty sighed, smoothing down her skirt. "He's okay if we're actively working on something, I suppose. He's working on one of those Millennium Problems."

"Math is the only thing that consistently gets him into his head."

"You mean out of his head?"

"No," Ralph said. "When we get like this, we cope by withdrawing within ourselves."

Patty gave him a long look. "How are  _you_  doing, Ralph?"

He looked down at his knees. He hated his skinny little legs. "I don't know."

There was a long silence, and when Patty spoke again, Ralph could tell she was being cautious. "Who…who's side are you on?"

Ralph bounced his heel against the pavement. "I don't know. Walter hurt her, and I hate him for hurting her. But he only did what he did because he thought that's what she wanted. He was learning, and you mess up when you learn." He bounced his heel again. If his mother was here, she would lecture him for mistreating his shoe. "But back to the other hand, he made her cry." Hard. At night when she thought Ralph was asleep. "And how can I side with someone who makes her cry?"

Patty scooted closer and put her arm around him. Just a few weeks ago, he would have practically short circuited. His heart maybe picked up the pace a bit, but that was it. "It's complicated," she said. "I know." She shook her head slowly. "I just can't believe after all that, Florence does have feelings for your…for Walter. I know I haven't known everyone as long as you, but how would he ever be able to work with Walter again after that?"

"She likes Sly, too."

"She has a mighty fine way of showing it," Patty said.

"That's the thing," Ralph said. "She has shown it. None of us had any clue she had a thing for Walter. But there were indications with Sly. She'll get over this thing."

"I want to be positive," Patty said. "But I mean…is thinking that realistic at this point? We don't even know what's been going on at the garage."

"No, but I think I know what it's like. For her. It reminds me of a crush I had when I was a kid. No, I mean," he added at her amused smirk. "When I was a  _kid_  kid. I was like nine. I was just starting to make friends at school. There were some girls in my class who could have been well suited for me eventually and vice versa, but I fixated on the leader of the group I found myself in. Her name was Sloan, and she was one of the first people who was truly kind to me. I got this crush on her. It lasted for a little while and went away. Thinking back on it now, even if we'd been old enough to date, we wouldn't have really made sense. We weren't that much alike, but the ways we were alike would have just exacerbated our flaws. We wouldn't have worked together like that."

"What was her name?"

"Sloan."

"Right. You said that." Patty tapped the tips of her fingers together. "So what? We hope Florence's crush fades, hope she tells everyone that, hope they get their heads out of their asses and talk to each other and hope that they agree to be a team again before some innocent person dies because one of these two teams are down a few essential roles? That's a lot of hoping, Ralph."

He sighed. "Yeah, but what can we do?"

At first, their shared look was casual, but it grew, in unison, to something more intense. Ralph knew they were having the same thought before the girl even spoke. "That's the question," Patty said, a light in her eyes. "Right there.  _What can we do?_ "

"It's up to us," Ralph said. "For a bunch of geniuses they can be pretty stupid and my mom is proud to a fault sometimes."

Patty reached into her bag and pulled out a notebook and color coordinated pen. "So what's the plan? Locking your mom and Walter in an elevator? Siccing Dr. Rizzuto on Florence? And what should we call this operation?"

She'd spoken so fast Ralph almost didn't process everything she said. "Situations where people can talk, definitely. And natural calming remedies, like our strategy with Cabe's trial, things that will help enhance logical thinking and make people them less tense and less likely to fight."

"Excellent, excellent," Patty mumbled, scribbling into the notebook. Or rather, writing fast, Ralph thought, since scribbling implied the writing would be difficult to read and her penmanship was almost annoyingly perfect even in a rush.

It wasn't long before Ralph heard his mother calling his name, but he and Patty had filled almost an entire half page with ideas. "Coming!" he called back, standing up. "Meet up in a few days?" He asked.

"Absolutely. I'm free between four thirty and six on Friday. Oh, before you go," she added quickly, pointing with the tip of the pen to the top of the page.

"Oh, a name, uh…" Ralph wracked his brain. "I got nothing."

Patty pointed the pen at him. "Did you ever see The Parent Trap?"

He had. His mother loved both the Hayley Mills one and the Lindsey Lohan remake – enough that Ralph actually knew the names of both of those actresses. He thought a moment, then smiled confidently. "The Cyclone Trap."

Patty wrote it in big, bold letters.


	2. Chapter 2

It almost hurt to see him again.

There hadn't even been a chance to say goodbye. When his mother had come storming home that April night, Ralph immediately knew something was wrong. "Are you okay, Mom?" He had asked. "Where's Walter?" He asked the question with baited breath, terrified of what she might say.  _Please, no._

"Walter isn't going to be around anymore," Paige said in a way that suggested she either somehow didn't know what a blow that was, or didn't care.

_No._

He'd been desperate to find out what happened, but he didn't want to ask. The way his mother had acted made him wonder if he would get the full story, or just a short, snappy response that might leave him with more questions than it answered.

"I'm sure you're disappointed," she'd said, dropping her bag down onto the couch and making a motion with her hands as if she was dusting them off. "But I refuse to be just one of someone's girlfriends."

Ralph couldn't remember if he'd opened his mouth to speak or if his jaw had just dropped from shock, but before he could react his mother was already gone, stomping down the hall to her bedroom.

He'd then texted Sylvester, only to be told that he and Paige had both quit the team and that Walter had seduced Florence. The first part had been shocking enough; the second had left Ralph unsure what to think. So he'd texted Toby, to find out that both he and Happy had left too. But in contrast to the others, Toby provided Ralph with some context, leaving the boy ultimately stressed and sad but relieved that Walter hadn't actually cheated on his mom.

That was all less than a month ago, but it still felt like a lifetime since he'd stepped into this garage, and when he and Walter had made eye contact Ralph temporarily blanked, forgot why he was there, and simply stood still and stared.

Walter's voice snapped him out of it. "Ralph."

"H – hi."

"Is…is everything okay?"

 _That is quite possibly the stupidest question I've ever heard._ "How are you? Business…good?"

Walter shrugged. "Getting work. It's fine."

"Good." Ralph looked down at his feet. "I uh…" He looked back up. "I just wanted to remind you that my end of year picnic is on Saturday."

Walter looked uncomfortable. "Ralph…"

"We had plans."

Walter pressed his lips together. "I know it was assumed at the time the date was announced that I would be accompanying you, however…" He paused. Ralph waited. Walter closed his eyes, pressing his fingers to his forehead before continuing. "I don't know that it's a good idea."

"We had  _plans_."

Walter sighed. "Ralph, I don't think you mom would want me to be there."

Ralph folded his arms. " _I_  want you to be there. It's  _my_  picnic."

"It's more complicated than that. You wouldn't understand."

"Right. My three additional I.Q. points gives you so much more E.Q. than me."

Walter sighed. "I don't want to make things awkward or tense for your picnic. And if I'm there, that might happen. I just want you to have a good day."

 _You're supposed to be in my life. Our lives. Celebrations mean nothing without both of you._ He felt a pang of guilt toward his mother for that last thought.  _Celebrations mean less without you than they do with you._  "You don't have to even talk to her. There's gonna be a lot of people at the picnic."  _Oh, you'll talk to her. We'll make sure you'll talk to her._  "Please consider it."

"I'll see. Okay?"

"I guess."

"Ralph, I wish I could promise more. But  _I'll see_."

 _If he doesn't promise, look real dejected, okay?_  Patty's suggestions – instructions – were easy enough to follow. Acting was easy if you really felt the way you were directed to feel. "Okay."

Ralph heard the door opening behind him and he turned, unsure how to feel about who had just walked in. Angry? Startled? Apprehensive?

"Oh, hi Ralph," Florence said.

She seemed to have picked 'uncomfortable.' "Hi," he said cooly. "I see you brought food."

"Uh, yeah. Cabe suggested one of us bring lunch today so we don't have to waste time going out. The deli had discount turkey sandwiches, so I hope that's okay…"

 _Walter likes fermented fish,_ Ralph almost blurted, just to make a point, but he didn't. He sure as hell wasn't going to be the one responsible for her learning things about him.

"Where's Cabe at?" Walter asked.

"Should be here any minute. He texted and asked if I could get the food since his briefing ran long." She crossed the room, glancing awkwardly at Ralph, and set the bag on Sylvester's old desk. Ralph felt a rush of relief – that she'd chosen Sylvester's as her own didn't necessarily mean a thing, but if she'd put the bag on his mother's, he would have put himself firmly into the questionable category of g _uys who fight girls._  Straightening up, Florence tugged at her shirt. "Ralph, you got a minute?"

"I actually have to get back to school," he said.

"I mean a minute in a very literal sense," she said after a hesitation.

He sighed. "Fine."

They walked toward the kitchen, stopping once out of earshot of Walter. "How are you?" She asked. "How's your…how's your mom?"

"Why do you want to know?"

Florence bit her lip. "Because I like your mom, and I feel terrible."

He wanted to be angry at her, but his mother had enough E.Q. for both of them and  _some_  of it had rubbed off. "It's not your fault. You're allowed to have feelings.  _I guess_."

Key word: s _ome_.

"Well. Thank you for understanding." Florence shifted her weight. "Um, you should know, or rather, I would like you to know, that nothing's happened between Walter and I."

"Well, he doesn't like you back, so I would assume not." He almost felt bad at the hurt look on Florence's face.

Key word: almost.

"Nothing would happen anyway," she said. "Neither of us would do that to Pai…your mom."

 _I know what my mom's name is. You can just say it._  "Well," Ralph said. "Glad to know there's some decency in this place. You may have confessed your feelings in the middle of their fight, but at least you're not acting on them, right?"

"It was terrible timing," she said. "I know that. I probably shouldn't have said anything at all, ever. If I could take it back, I would. You don't have to believe me. I understand if you don't."

"This is taking a little bit longer than a literal minute."

Florence closed her eyes briefly. "Ralph, I just know how hard this must be for you. All I wanted to say was you don't have to worry about seeing him and I out together, or imagining us as a couple, because it's not happening. I don't even want it to happen outside of a world where your mom doesn't exist, because the last thing he or I would want is to hurt her. It's more of an  _in another life_  thing."

Ralph knew she was just emphasizing that not wanting to hurt Paige came from multiple parties, but he hated her speaking of herself and Walter as  _he and I_. He held his tongue. He really did have to get back to school. "Okay. Maybe I'll see you around some jobs." Without waiting for her to respond, Ralph turned on his heel and headed back toward the door. As he neared Walter's desk, he turned to the older genius, who was watching him quietly. "Please come to my picnic," he said. "I miss you."


	3. Chapter 3

"All right, Patty," Sylvester said with a smile. "If there's nothing else we can do on the paperwork today, I'm going to head off to go to a little social gathering with my friends from The Warlock's Chest. A little impromptu role play…"

"You don't have time to do that," Patty interjected. "You have that chemistry mixer that Professor Tweedy is hosting."

"I have that what now?" Sylvester asked. "What are you talking about?"

"Professor Tweedy, from campus," she said. "I told you about that."

"You…you mentioned it a couple weeks ago, but I thought…"

"It is even more imperative that you go now that Centipede Partners has formed," Patty said. "The addition of a chemistry specialist benefited Team Scorpion, and someone with a strong chem background would be invaluable to Team Centipede. And as you worked closely with Florence Tipton, you know what specific skills to look for. So it has to be you."

"I don't know that that's the best idea," Sylvester said. "Florence might be there, and I don't know exactly how much you know about all this, but…"

"Why would Florence be there?" Patty asked, hoping her voice didn't betray that she knew very well that Florence  _was_  going to be there. "She wouldn't be looking for a chemist to assist the other team, and she probably already knows most of the people there, and if she liked them any, they would have come to hang out with her sometimes. She knows many people but doesn't have many friends, ergo most people are people she wouldn't want to hang out with."

"You do make a good point," Sylvester said, a hand going to his chin thoughtfully.

"Of course I do. All my points are good. You're going to the mixer."

"Yes ma'am."

"Perfect. Now, if you'll excuse me." Patty waltzed away, out of earshot, and pulled out her phone. Ralph answered on the first ring. "The laundry is out of the hamper."

"That's not the code."

"What? Yes it is!"

"No, it's supposed to be out of the  _washer_."

"Is now really the best time to get pedantic?"

"Fair enough. So he's agreed to go?"

"Yes." She hesitated. "Are you sure this is the best idea? What if she really does have zero feelings for him?"

"The important thing here isn't necessarily what comes of their talk. What is important is they talk. Florence knows Walter was never flirting with her. If she tells Sylvester that, then that might make him less upset with Walter. And if she does feel something for him, deep down, that may come out when they see each other. But the only time they've seen each other since the blowup was when they briefly were in the same room for the Gettleman pitch. And from what I understand she didn't say a word, not to anyone."

"Well," Patty said, "I hope you're right. Because he really, really didn't want to go."

"How did you convince him?"

She scoffed. "Please." She heard Ralph chuckle on the other end of the line. "So nothing else from Walter? No indication if he's coming to your picnic?"

"Nope. But I think he'll come. He hates the idea of letting me down. If I didn't want him to come so badly, I'd feel guilty. Like I was taking advantage."

"Don't worry about that," Patty said. "I'll be the one to take any advantages that need taking in The Cyclone Trap. You miss Walter, telling him that isn't being manipulative."

"So basically it's the only honest thing going on in this entire mission."

"Think of it this way," Patty said. "Scorpion 2.0 and Centipede Partners aren't complete without each other. Everything we're doing is for the Greater Good."

* * *

_This will be easy. It's a mixer. Mix. Mix and mingle. Find us someone who will benefit Centipede. It will benefit your political career too, you know. You need someone to help you with your projects._

Patty made everything sound both easy and daunting at the same time. Sylvester tugged at his collar. He wasn't used to dressing nicely – at least not in this way. He had his casual sweater vests and his nice sweater vests and his special occasion sweater vests but he rarely wore shirts like this. He rarely needed to. And going into an unfamiliar situation dressed in an unfamiliar way – and doing it totally alone – was daunting. He needed his inner calm and it wasn't necessarily hiding from him but it wasn't making a huge effort, either. He felt slightly sick to his stomach. He hadn't had much freedom from that feeling in the past month, even despite diving into work and complicated math problems and anything and everything that would stop him from thinking about everything that went wrong just when he had convinced himself it was about to all go right.

He tugged at his collar again. It was a bit too tight. He glanced around, searching for signs indicating a bathroom. He didn't trust himself to loosen it without making his whole look appear discombobulated, and Patty was right, it probably was smart to be here. Centipede Partners was doing well, but it needed the same type of skillset the complete original team had in order to really thrive long term.

And they had to thrive. They'd essentially fled what was previously their oasis and they needed to create another one in order to survive.

Spotting a bathroom sign, Sylvester excused his way through a crowd of people, heading for it. Lots of people, lots of noise…he was sweating now, just a bit more than he was comfortable with. Hopefully the bathroom wouldn't be crowded. Hopefully he would be able to catch his breath and compose himself.

There was an arrow above the bathroom sign, pointing to the left, down what he knew from earlier was a short hall that also led to an exit to the veranda outside. Sylvester turned left, nearly colliding with someone coming the opposite direction. "Oh, I'm sorry, I…" he started, reaching out to steady her.

"Oh, pardon me…"

They stopped cold, staring at each other, mouths slightly open in surprise. Sylvester's hand withdrew from her elbow. For a few long, awkward seconds, neither said a word, and when they both spoke again, it was in unison.

"Oh…"


	4. Chapter 4

"Your picnic is in a few days," Paige said with a smile as she handed her son a bowl of ice cream. "Are you excited?"

Ralph was startled – even though it's not like it didn't make sense for her to ask. "Uh yeah, sure Mom," he said with what he hoped was an enthusiastic enough nod.

"You've been staring at your phone a lot tonight," she said. "Waiting to hear from someone?"

"Oh, that's nothing," Ralph said. "Patty and I are talking. Working on the whole friendship thing."

She ruffled his hair. He hated when she did that. "I'm proud of you, Ralph. It's very hard to be friends with someone you were in love with."

"I wasn't  _in love_  with her," Ralph protested. "Having feelings and being in love with are two extremely different things, or else saying you love someone wouldn't be a big deal in relationships because if you're dating, there's already feelings there, right? The two are not synonymous."

Paige sank down in the chair across from him, setting her own bowl on the table. "Why do I feel like you're saying this for my benefit?"

"He didn't know about Florence. He didn't cheat on you, Mom."

Paige closed her eyes. "Ralph, it's very complicated."

"You love him. You told him you two would get through anything together."

"If he was honest with me. He wasn't. And how do you know about that, anyway?"

"I know a lot of things." Ralph leaned forward. "One of which is that it's ridiculous to say you'd be okay with  _anything_  he said as long as he told you. So being honest about having sex with Florence would have been better than lying about hanging out with her platonically?" He crossed his arms. "You said no matter what, you two would be okay. That doesn't sound like someone who's been so miserable in her relationship like you told him you were  _the same day_. It sounds more like someone deeply in love who would rather work on a problem than throw it away. But what do I know. I'm Gen Z. We're just lazy pricks who eat soap."

" _Ralph_ ," Paige snapped. "I have never said anything like that. And you're thirteen. You don't know how adult relationships work. It's not about your intelligence, it's about your experience."

Ralph wanted to blurt out that Walter was coming to the picnic, that he expected her to come too, and that he also expected her to act like she had all this experience she was touting and behave herself. But that wasn't part of the plan, and Patty would kill him.

His mother might, too.

* * *

_And the band plays some song about forgetting yourself for a while. And the piano's this melancholy sound check to her smile._

* * *

What on Earth was Sylvester Otis Dodd doing at Professor Tweedy's chemistry mixer?

That was the logical question running through Florence's mind as she stared. The one that made less sense to be thinking about at that moment was  _is his middle name really Otis or am I just even more confused than I thought_?

"S…Sylvester," she managed after another moment of awkward silence. "You're here."

"I am," he said, looking flustered. "Thought it would…Patty told me to come."

Ah, so it was something for one of his alderman projects. Her immediate reaction was to open her mouth to tell him she'd be more than willing to help him with whatever he needed, then shut it again almost as quickly. Was that even appropriate now? Wouldn't that cross some sort of line? So instead, she gave a smile she hoped was polite. "That's nice."

"Yeah. So uh…" he gestured toward her. "You look good. Nice. Professional. How are you?"

 _Well, I'm feeling guilty that I'm glad you're fumbling over your words because that makes two of us._ "I'm good. Well, fine. I guess." Truth be told, she had never fully understood the term  _dead inside_  until she'd returned home the night the team broke apart. The past few weeks, while fulfilling in the professional sense, were weighing on her so heavily that she wasn't sure there was much life left inside her. When she'd realized she was feeling something for Walter, she had kept it quiet, not wanting to ruin anything. And now, her admission had been one domino in a chain that had ruined  _every_ thing. And somehow, admitting it hadn't made it seem more real. Only more confusing.

Or maybe, it was less her admission that had her confused and more the admission of the man standing here now.

_I'm in love with her._

She knew those weren't his words verbatim. She couldn't quite remember those particulars. But they were the essence of what he said. Sylvester. Her friend. Someone she cared so damn much about. She'd broken his heart without even realizing it, without even having the chance to evaluate him in the way he'd already decided about her.

"Can we talk, Sly?" She asked, gesturing with her head in the direction from which she'd just come. There were surprisingly few people on the veranda. It was quiet, with doors leading to the hallway they were in and then to a few guest rooms farther down the way. It wasn't the idea place for mass socialization to happen, she supposed.

"Florence, I'm…" he paused to steady his breathing. She hoped – selfishly – it was part sensory overload from the party and not just his reaction to her. She didn't want to cause him any more discomfort. "I'm not sure talking about it would make me feel any better."

"Okay. I understand." She hoped he wouldn't hear the hitch in her voice, that the lighting in the hallway was enough to hide the fact that those stupid tears were popping up again. "Uh, the cheese dip is good. I have to, uh…" she gestured behind her and turned, heading back the way she came before realizing that he probably saw right through her; she'd clearly been going  _somewhere_  else when they'd bumped into each other.

Well, that wasn't important anymore. She needed to get  _away_. Pushing the door open, the cool breeze hit her as she stepped out onto the veranda. She kept walking until she reached the end. One of the guest rooms was behind her, and she knew it was unoccupied. No one else would come this way. She could be alone.

Sinking down onto the artistic wooden bench near the door, she put her head in her hands. She didn't believe in karma, but she did believe in Newton's Laws, and if every action had an equal and opposite reaction, what on  _Earth_  had she or Sylvester done to deserve feeling like this?

"This seat taken?"

"Yes," she said coldly, before doing a double take. "Sylvester."

"I'm sorry. You were right. We should talk."

She stood up before he could sit down. "No, no, it's okay."

"No. Not talking will just leave us…will leave the two of us, as individuals, in a limbo. And that's not a good place to stay."

"Okay." She blinked a few times, trying to clear the evidence of emotion from her eyes, wanting to be composed.

"I'm sorry I said what I did. That fight between Walter and I…it shouldn't have happened in front of you. I'm sure I made you uncomfortable."

"No, it's okay," she said quickly. "I'm the one who should apologize."

"For not having feelings for me? You can't help that. Especially when Walter spent all that time – "

"Seducing me?" She said, folding her arms. "He never did a damn thing, Sylvester. He loved Paige. He still does. He wouldn't do that to her in a million years."

"Part of what makes him such a great guy, huh?"

She thought she detected some resentment in his voice.  _Don't resent me. I couldn't live with that. But also…_ "why in the world are you mad at me for saying Walter loves Paige?"

"Sorry." He turned away. "I'm not mad. I'm just…you're not the right person to talk about this with. Paige said third party. Impartial third party."

"Sylvester, I wish I'd known."

He looked back at her. "Known what?"

"About how you felt."

"Can you honestly tell me that that would have made any of a difference?"

She shrugged, holding her hands palms up. She was flustered. "I – I don't know. But we could have tried. Seen where it went."

"All while you were thinking of Walter?"

"Not if you'd asked me out before that."

"So it is my fault. My own man – baby self's fault for not making a move. For being scared at what I felt for you. For being afraid I was betraying Megan for wanting to feel that again, much less actually feeling it and wanting to act on it. For being overwhelmed at how quickly I fell for you when I used to think I would never love again. For being terrified I would ask you out for you to laugh at me. For…"

"Sylvester,  _stop_." Her chest hurt. "There's nothing wrong with how you feel.  _Nothing_. I promise. And I would never have laughed at you."

He bit his lip. "Maybe not. Although being rejected still would have hurt. I was still afraid of that."

 _Maybe I wouldn't have said no._  She searched herself, trying to decide what she would have done. "Sylvester, I would have agreed to give it a chance. I'm sure I would have."

She could see the answer on his face.  _If I'd asked before you had feelings for Walter._  Not necessarily just then. "Walter was in a relationship and felt nothing for me. I always knew I would just have to get over that. And that means potentially seeing where things might go with someone else. I can't say for sure what would have happened. I just wish you'd have talked to me."

"I'm sorry."

"No. It's okay. Shoulda, coulda, woulda."

"You still didn't deserve to find out that way."

"It's  _okay_."

He turned toward her, shaking his head slowly. "I guess we're both in the same boat now, huh?"

"What do you mean?"

"Getting over people." He gave her a wry smile. "Sucks, doesn't it?"

"Word."

"Maybe next time," he said with a shrug, "I'll act."

"Mmmm." She gave a small nod. The space between them suddenly seemed smaller, although she knew neither of them had moved a muscle. Her eyes searched his; they were nice eyes, kind ones, and they were brimming with an affection for her that she was so grateful to see hadn't faded she her knees almost buckled from sheer relief.

And then s _he_ acted; putting her hands on his chest and tugging him down low enough for her to kiss him almost before she even realized she was doing it. By the time it registered, he was kissing her back, putting his hands respectfully on her sides, at the bottom of her rib cage. She found something about that extremely attractive.

The kiss didn't stop, like a first kiss that came seemingly out of nowhere probably should. She found the longer it lasted, the more she didn't want it to stop. Sylvester's tongue ran along one of her lips and she parted them, stepping closer and sliding her arms around his neck. He pulled her against him, still gentle but less hesitant. She'd never been kissed like this before, and if she had ever been held, it was so long ago it was as good as wiped from her memory. It certainly wasn't from a…was love interest the right word, here? Walter was the one she liked.

And yet when their lips parted – Sylvester needed air – she moaned quietly and pulled his mouth back to hers, her hand burrowed in his hair.  _Don't do that again. Screw air. Just kiss me._ She kissed him again, harder, feeling a buzzing against her lips when he made a sound in his throat, and she was glad he was holding her because her head was beginning to spin.

A smattering of muffled laughter reminded her of where they were, and she pulled her lips away from his to frantically glance around. "In here," she said, pulling him toward the guest room, her hand fumbling for the door knob as her back came against the wall. Sylvester's lips came back into contact with her, this time on her neck, still so incredibly gentle, and she gasped again at the double stimulation of his mouth and his hips against hers, her hand tightening around the door knob too tightly to turn it. "Oh, God."

Sylvester's hand came over hers, twisting the knob, and then they were stumbling into the room like she always imagined the high schoolers did after prom. She wouldn't know. It really wasn't important. What was important was she couldn't get enough of his lips on hers and he was kissing her again.

 _Bed,_  she thought, and when he began to nudge her in that direction she realized she must have said it out loud. "Florence," he said when they reached it, his breath ragged, "I've never done this before."

She pulled back briefly, surprised, but relieved that she wasn't going to have to pretend. "Me either," she said with a nonchalant shrug.

He blinked. "Oh. Okay." For a moment she felt logic kicking back in, a tiny voice telling her to ignore the physical signals her body was giving her, they were wrong, this was a mistake. But then he was kissing her again, easing her back against the mattress and getting down beside her, silencing the voice he didn't even know was there. Florence let him. She didn't want to listen to the voice, anyway.

His hand slid over her hips, slowly, making her hyper aware of her khakis, and when she went to undo the button a glint on it made her realize they weren't completely isolated. "The door," she whispered breathlessly, getting up to lock it. There wasn't much they could do about the window, but with no lights on inside the room, it was extremely unlikely they'd be noticed.

The brief separation from Sylvester brought the voice back, telling her this wasn't right, this wasn't fair, but her hands weren't listening, undoing the button on her pants and pushing them off her hips as she returned to the bed. She knelt on the mattress, not having to feel for Sylvester because he was already back with her, and their lips met again while both sets of hands explored. The voice was gone. She'd be damned if she let it back again.

His hands were now decidedly higher than they'd been earlier, when they were still outside, and she gasped against his lips, a frantic, raspy  _don't stop_  as she placed a hand on his own chest, asking him to lay back.

* * *

_The worst thing about crossing a line is when you don't know you already have._


	5. Chapter 5

She was hoping that perhaps Cabe would be gone for the night, that Walter would already be upstairs asleep, but no such luck.  When she entered the garage she found both of them at Walter’s desk, studying something on the laptop, and they both turned to her as soon as she walked in.  _Shit._

She hoped they were too engrossed in what they were doing to really care that she’d stopped by.

“Hey,” Cabe said casually, still looking at the screen.

“Hey,” she said, making her way across the room with an authoritative stride.

“Florence,” Walter said.  “Did you have a satisfying time at the mixer?”

She froze, turning slowly toward him.  “What?  Who did you talk to?”

His look of complete confusion made her blush.  His question had been innocent.  He had no idea.  But now he _had_ to know something was up.

“I…haven’t talked to anybody,” he said with a frown.  “How would anyone else know how you felt about the event?”

“That’s a very good point, Walter,” she said with a nod.  So he really didn’t suspect anything.  “The mixer was fine.”

“Those things are great for learning about different perspectives,” Cabe said.  “You can think of You explore any new territory tonight, kid?”

Florence swore her entire supply of blood was in her face.  “Uh, well, uh, you know.  Learned some stuff, came away with some stuff with more questions than answers, science, you know.”

“The great thing about science,” Walter said.  “There’s always something else left to learn.  I look forward to hearing about your night in great detail in the morning.”

Florence coughed.  “Uh huh.  I was just here to get my briefing paperwork.”

“It’s on your desk,” Walter said, turning back to his laptop.

“Cool.  Thanks.”  She hurried over to her desk.  “I’ll be going now.”

“You okay, Flo?” Cabe asked.  He had that kind, fatherly expression on his face.  The one that made everyone feel safe.  Under almost any other circumstances, she might have considered telling him.

 _For the love of God, it’s Florence._ “Yeah, I’m fine.  It’s just late, you know.”  She shrugged.  “I’ll see you guys tomorrow.”

“Scorpi- _un_!” Walter shouted.  It was his new thing, emphasizing that they were a team, to make a point about the ones who were no longer there.

“Yeah,” Florence said as she pushed at the door.  “Scorpi-un.”

It occurred to her as she entered her lab that she hadn’t grabbed the paperwork she’d referenced.  She would just have to look at it in the morning.  She mentally kicked herself for forgetting it.  She needed a distraction.

 _Am I a horrible person?_   Sylvester loved her.  Maybe Florence didn’t put much emphasis on virginity – it was a social construct, a person was no different after they had sex than before, it was such a stupid thing to put importance on – but he very probably didn’t view it the same way as she did.  If she was his first, he had never been with his wife.  And being intimate with someone who had been married, but hadn’t consummated that marriage…it made everything more complicated.  He wouldn’t have initiated it.  He wouldn’t have gone through with it if it wasn’t for his feelings for her.  She had more power in the situation, so why hadn’t she stopped it?  Why hadn’t she listened to that voice?

It was a stupid question.  She knew good and well why she’d pushed the voice out of her head.  She’d wanted to.  She’d been thrown off at how good his lips felt that she’d wanted to know everything. And she was a scientist.  When she wanted to know something, she did her best to learn.

Afterward, when they lay next to each other trying to catch their breath, she’d caught him looking at her in the dim light, and the voice had come back, telling her she’d crossed a line.

“I’m sorry,” she’d blurted.

He’d shaken his head.  “No, you don’t have to – ”

There’d been a bit more awkwardness, then one of them – she didn’t remember who – had suggested they get back to the mixer.  Clothes had been adjusted and put back on, and before she knew it she was laughing at some stupid story Gloria Bannon was telling at the punch bowl, Sylvester somewhere across the room chatting up a couple underdressed medical technologists she knew from her stay at the hospital following her encounter with the jellyfish.

She pulled her bed out from the wall and flopped down on it, staring up at the ceiling.  All she’d wanted was to find a place where she felt she belonged.  And somehow, while foul smelling gas and personal insults hadn’t pushed them away, she ended up ruining it anyway.

The last person on the planet she wanted to hurt was Sylvester.  And now she may have done it twice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was going to have Sylvester and Patty’s conversation about the mixer happen in this chapter, and then another conversation between Patty and Ralph, but I felt Florence’s guilt would carry a different amount of weight if I let on where Sylvester stands on the whole thing in the same chapter, so that will be next! There’s one relationship in particular that needs to be salvaged that the kids haven’t done anything about yet, so you’ll see about that next too!


	6. Chapter 6

Patty sat cross legged in the recliner that was tucked in the corner of Sylvester and Paige's office. A door separated this one from Happy and Toby's. Patty had found it weird, at first, that the married couple had their own office, but Sylvester had explained. "Paige wanted it to be very clear that Centipede Partners has never, not even from day one, had an issue with relationships between members." So Happy and Toby got their own office. But there was no actual door in the threshold, because, also according to Sylvester, "that doesn't mean it's going to get  _too_  weird."

"Just a normal amount of weird," Toby had said, patting Happy on the rear as he'd walked by.

"I wish we had someone to figure out how the mixer went from Florence's perspective," she heard Ralph say.

Patty shifted the phone to her other ear. "Same. Any chance you could talk to Cabe? He stayed at Scorpion, but he's easily the most neutral in all this. He didn't know any of it was going on until it went down."

"I guess. But he is big on the whole 'respect your elders' thing and I might just get a lecture about meddling."

"It's not being disrespectful to try and help adults with their heads in their asses get their heads out of their asses."

"An ass is a terrible place to have your head stuck."

"Agreed." Patty nodded even though he couldn't hear her. "I think I hear Sylvester coming up the stairs – you want me to leave you on the line so you can listen?"

"Sure. My mom just left, so I'm alone."

"Cool. Setting you down now." She propped the phone up against where her calves crossed, making sure to smile when the door opened and Sylvester entered the front room. "Hey."

"Morning, Patty," he said. "I wasn't expecting you this early."

"Well, school's out for the year, but that doesn't mean I'm done learning and striving to improve," she said. It was a very  _her_  thing to say, but Patty suddenly wondered if she sounded forced, like it was obvious that she was here to snoop. "How was the thing last night? Anything particularly interesting happen?"

She had been expecting Sylvester to be vague, but her eyebrows still shot up in surprise when his response was condensed into a single word. "Nope."

"What's wrong?" Patty asked.

"Nothing," he said quickly. Too quickly.

"No, no, something is the matter," she said. "You're acting weird."

"I always act weird."

She rolled her eyes. "Fine. You're acting weird for  _you_." She cocked her head. "Tell me."

"Uh. No."

"Ah, so something  _is_  up," she said, pleased he had fallen into such an easy trap.

"Maybe it's something I can't talk to you about," Sylvester said. "You're a kid."

"Yeah, because something totally happened at that mixer that a seventeen – year – old can't know about. You science types don't get  _that_  wild at some rich professor's house."

"Fine." He ran a hand through his hair. "Florence was there. We talked. And we took things too far. Satisfied? I mean,  _happy_?"

"Yeah?" The mechanic stuck her head around the doorframe.

Sylvester blinked in surprise. "When did you get here?"

"I work here, you dope."

"Right." Sylvester cleared his throat. "Go back to what you were doing, please?"

"Uh, no, if there's a secret, I want to know it."

"There is a secret, and it's going to stay a secret because no one is getting told," Sylvester said firmly.

Happy rolled her eyes. "Super lame, Dodd. You're lucky it's tricky keeping my balance while leaning this far back in this seat, because I'm gonna return to my blue printing now." She vanished from view, and Sylvester breathed a visible sigh of relief.

"Sylvester," Patty said, ignoring a text from Ralph that said  _SCARE him into it!_  and deciding to take a gentler approach, "did something bad happen?"

"No," he said again. "I just, uh, I ran into Florence."

"Oh? She was there after all, huh?"

"Well, yeah, but I literally ran into her. Then we talked. It was confusing. Then we, well, uh…"

A new text from Ralph. Patty glanced down.

_Oh my god, the fucked._

Patty swore she heard Paige yelling "language" even though the woman wasn't here, nor would she have any idea what the text said.

Another text came through from Ralph.

_*they._

She looked back at Sylvester, who still seemed rattled. Unsure. "You guys…"

Yep, wasn't just Sylvester. She didn't know how to say it either.

"Okay, you know what? You're old enough. We slept together. That's all I'm going to say." He held his hands up, then walked around to his desk, easing into the chair and scooting it in.

"So…" Patty ignored the buzz from her phone. It was probably just Ralph saying  _what did I just say?_  or something else to that same smug effect. "You guys are together?"

"No."

She cocked her head. "I'm confused."

"Me too, a little bit."

He'd been right. This was not something she could help with. This was not something she could give advice on. Patty glanced down to view the earlier text from Ralph.

_Damn._

He could say that again.

"She likes  _Walter_ ," Sylvester said, his face taking on a small sneer when he said his brother's name. "And yet last night…she really seemed to like me. So I don't know what the hell is going on."

"I'm sorry, Sly."

"Nah, don't be. It's confusing and weird but I'm glad it happened."

"You're glad? Wait, why?"

"It's complicated," Sylvester said. "I'm not going to explain it."

"Okay, whatever." Patty shrugged. "Ralph says Paige left a few minutes ago so she should be getting here soon. I'm gonna go hunt around the food court in the next building. You want anything?"

"I'm good. Thanks, though."

Patty grabbed her phone, jumped up, and headed for the stairs.

She met Paige on the landing. "Morning, Ms. Dineen," she said, again doubting herself, hoping she didn't sound too formal.

"Morning, Patty," Paige said. "How you doing?"

"Oh, fine. Just had a few things to discuss with Sylvester. I'm going to get food, you want anything?"

Paige smiled. "No, thank you. Say, do you know if Toby is here yet?"

"I didn't see him or hear him, but Happy's here, so probably?"

"Thanks. Hope your quest to find food is successful."

"Yeah, thanks." Patty wasn't going to find food. She was going to find that bench outside of the insurance office on the first floor. Or rather, she was going to sit on the bench. It was connected to the floor and never moved, so it's not like she had to find it.

Damn, she'd been spending a lot of time with left brained individuals lately.

"Okay, so you heard all of that," she said, putting the phone back to her ear as she sat down.

"Yeah," Ralph said. "Florence and Sylvester slept together. And he's weirdly glad about it even though it doesn't seem like they talked about it or even improved their standing with each other at all."

"Adults are weird," Patty said.

"Preach it." She heard Ralph shifting his weight. "How did we get into a situation where Sylvester Dodd losing his virginity on a one – night stand to a woman he's in love with who has feelings for his former boss at a college professor's house that two kids sent him to become just the  _tip_  of the yikesburg?"

"Former boss, former friend," Patty said. "This is the one angle we really haven't worked from, yet."

"Yeah. Honestly I have no idea what to do, there. Especially since my mom and Walter still haven't talked, the picnic is still two days away,  _and_  we really have no idea if what we planned to get Sylvester and Florence to talk actually worked, if the mixer was the first domino in a chain to get it to work, or if it's irreparably screwed up now."

"Well, we can only do so much," Patty said. "We're trying to help them all. If they don't want to be helped, we're up a creek without a paddle."

"They want to be helped," Ralph said. "My mom was crying again last night. Florence feels horrible for her part in all this. None of them have a clue how to make this right, or they're too scared to try. That's where we come in."

"I like your positivity, Ralph. I sure hope you're right." Patty tapped her foot. "But how on Earth are we going to fix things between Sly and Walt? Do we have to just hope our plans for Walt and your mom and for Sly and Flo work out and then they'll mend on their own? I don't trust any of them to get this figured out without help or tragedy, and I really would rather avoid tragedy."

"Agreed." There was a silence. "How about you actually do go to that food court? I can be there in ten minutes. We may need another notebook planning session."

"Sounds good to me."


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, yes, two chapters in the same day (well, for me, I suppose that does depend on your time zone). Reviews make me happy and more likely to want to keep forging on with my writing and editing, and the other factor is my life is kinda meh this week and writing helps distract me from my mundane existence. So here's the first Walter and Paige scene of the fic! I know I've been pretty focused on Fly the past few episodes, but I needed to start their story first for reasons that hopefully will be clear as the fic continues.

Walter wandered awkwardly around blankets and picnic tables, dodging the younger siblings of Ralph's classmates who had struck up a game of tag and another group playing Kick The Can before he spotted where he was headed. Paige was sitting on a pink and gray blanket, her legs stretched out in front of her with her ankles crossed. He knew it was her even though her back was to him – he recognized the blanket, and her hair was let down, dancing gracefully between her shoulders in the ever so slight breeze. There was no sign of Ralph, but fifty or so yards farther down the field were a few crowds of teenagers.

Walter angled slightly to the right, not wanting to walk straight up behind her. He wondered if Ralph had told her he was coming. He had gotten a text from the boy earlier saying to find them upon arrival and  _there shouldn't be confrontation_. That, to him, indicated that Ralph had given Paige some sort of heads up. Truth be told, he appreciated that. He was fully expecting it to be  _awkward_ , but wasn't sure he could stand another argument.

He was mere feet from the blanket and was figuring out what would be an appropriate greeting when she looked up. Their eyes met, and there was a moment of painful, awkward silence. Then Walter cleared his throat. "Hi."

"Hi."

"Ralph, uh, asked me to come."

She gave a little nod. "Okay. That was nice of you." They stared at each other in silence, then she cleared her throat, gesturing to the blanket. "You can sit if you want, I guess."

"Okay." Walter settled on the blanket across from her, feeling conflicted. He was glad he wouldn't be awkwardly wandering around for the entire afternoon, but on the other hand, families were sitting together. Two months ago, this would have felt natural. Now he just felt like some kind of a fraud.

Two months ago, he would have sat next to her, not across from her. Two months ago he would have slid an arm around her, and now he was making sure that their feet didn't touch when he stretched out his legs. Eventually, he couldn't not look at her without that seeming more awkward than looking at her would be.

Paige was wearing a black tank top with frill at the bottom and a pair of dark blue jeans. Walter didn't recognize the top, but he knew the jeans were her favorite. They were comfortable, they had pockets, and they made her butt look red carpet ready. Her words, but she did make excellent points.

"So, uh…where is Ralph?"

"They called the kids up to get their class t – shirts. Why they did that after the year is over, I have no idea. But no one ever accused their merchandise coordinator of being one of the sharper tools in the shed. Though I'd probably still call him a tool, regardless."

She hadn't specifically said where Ralph was, but Walter could infer that he was somewhere in the long line over by the stage. "You…look really nice today," he offered. She looked away. "What?"

"You're not allowed to say that to me anymore," she said quietly, still refusing to look at him.

Walter's heart throbbed painfully, but he also felt a dash of anger. "It's just a compliment. The guy at the  _deli counter_  says it to you." Was the guy at the deli counter here? Was that who the new tank top was for?  _You're being ridiculous_ , he chided himself.  _Maybe she's just dressed nicely for her. It's not always about a guy. Geez, O'Brien._

And yet he was still scared. Scared that she had already moved on. Scared that although she had never slept with Tim Armstrong, never told him she loved him, and never seriously planned a future in that relationship, she could move past what she had with  _him_  just as fast as she had moved past her previous relationship  _with_  him.

Thankfully, she didn't seem angry at him pointing out that he hadn't said anything to her that she might not get from any person she came into contact with in a normal day. "Sorry. You're right." Her head swiveled back toward him. "Look, I just want this to be a nice, pleasant afternoon for Ralph. Can you do that for him, please?"

"You were the one who…" he sighed. "Never mind."

She stared down at her lap for a moment before speaking again. "Thank you, I guess. For the compliment. I just bought this top and I was worried I would look washed out, having not been out in the sun much."

"You don't."  _You're still the most beautiful woman in the world._ Walter stopped himself from voicing that thought. That was a little more than "just a compliment."

"Thank you." She was quiet. "So how are things?"

"Fine." Walter shrugged. "Had to take my car in the other day. First time in almost ten years." The Not Happy at the shop had done a decent enough job with it.

"Everything okay with it?"

"Yep."

"Good."

Walter used to enjoy silence, but the silences stretching in between their exchanges were painful. They used to be able to talk all day long, and the silences were filled with cuddling and kissing and smiling stupidly at each other.

_You're gonna miss this. You're gonna want this back._

He had only heard that song once, but it was on the way to this picnic and he decided he hated it.

"Paige?" He asked, wondering if his voice sounded as hoarse to her as it did to him.

She was staring at her feet, but her eyes flickered up to his. "Hmmm?"

"What you said about making this a good day for Ralph…what if I don't want just that?"

Her posture and expression changed slightly. He couldn't read what it meant. She cocked her head, clearly curious. "As in?"

 _As in I love you. As in I want this to work. As in I'll try harder as long as you don't belittle me when I mess up. Because I will mess up. But I'll never stop trying for you. For you and for Ralph._  "As in I can't stand it like this. I know I'm not what you want in a relationship. But if we can put enough behind us to be friends, I…I would like that. The idea of going through the rest of my life without you in it, with you not wanting anything to do with me…" he trailed off. "I don't know if I can do that."

She looked at him for a long while. She looked tired. He still couldn't read the expression on her face, but she didn't seem angry at what he had just said. Walter wondered if he should say more, if he should clarify that he meant only as friends. He didn't want her to pull away farther, and if she only wanted a platonic relationship, he would take it, he would take  _anything_ over this. He opened his mouth, but she spoke before he could get any of that out. "Okay."

She'd said it quietly, but he heard it loud and clear. He felt his heart skip a beat. "Okay?"

She nodded. "I'd like that. It will make Ralph happy, that's for sure. And, I mean, you've been in my life for so long…it does feel weird that this is the first time we've talked since Gettleman's office."

"It does, doesn't it?"

She gave slow nod. "It's nice to see you again, Walter."

He opened his mouth to say the same thing back, but he was interrupted again, this time by someone else. "Walter!"

He turned, a smile – a completely genuine one and perhaps the first of its kind in months – on his face as Ralph came running over to the blanket. He tossed a white tee shirt and a couple wrapped objects on the blanket, then threw himself at Walter, the momentum knocking the two of them back. Walter grunted when a shoulder came into contact with a small rock, but he focused on Ralph, hugging him back, amused at the boy's enthusiasm. Not many teenagers would hug an adult in their lives so aggressively they'd end up in a pile on the grass. "It's good to see you, buddy," he said, pushing Ralph gently off him as he sat up.

Ralph shifted into a kneeling position, walking on his knees onto the blanket. "Same." He settled down, sitting criss – cross, placing his phone face down between them. "You wanna hear a really funny story from my computer science final?"

"Do you even have to ask?" Walter joked, a corner of his mouth curving upward. He'd missed Ralph's stories. If it was his college computer class, this was probably another ridiculous Liam story.

"So, the professor gives us the guidelines, and then Liam says…"

The story was hilarious, and seeing Ralph so animated and relaxed made Walter happy and gave him a sense of calm, but he still couldn't help but notice the way Paige was looking at the two of them. He wanted to turn to smile at her, but he didn't.

Because he knew how it felt when she smiled back at him. And he wasn't allowed to feel that way anymore.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Been a few days without any updates, so sorry for that! We are nearing the Kentucky Derby (it's on Saturday) and that's the biggest day of the year for me, so I've been running around my side of the Mississippi for prep races and festivities and all that jazz, and I'm going to be in Kentucky most of this week, so I'm not sure if I'll be able to update again before next Sunday. I'll see how I feel in the evenings, though! In the meantime, hope you enjoy this chapter!

_I know I'm not what you want in a relationship. But if we can put enough behind us to be friends, I would like that._

The words were playing on loop in her mind. Paige shook her head, silently asking her brain to put anything else in her head. Anything else.

_Our state fair is a great state fair…_

Okay. Maybe she should think about why agreeing to be civil to Walter had put her in near tears the moment she was alone. Although if she was honest with herself, she already knew.

She missed him. It shouldn't be that hard for her to admit that, at least to herself. They'd been together for nearly a year, and with the exception of the month immediately before that, she'd rarely gone more than a few days without seeing him. Even when she was upset with him, seeing him was a comfort that she never really let herself question. After spending years at his side in a professional sense and eleven odd months with his hand in hers, completely separating from that was really fucking hard. And now, when she was angry with him again, she still hated him not laying next to her now, sound asleep, relaxed and vulnerable in a way that he never was with anyone else.

Sure, they had their problems. But every relationship had problems. Not every relationship was  _special_ , and hers and Walter's was certainly that.

Paige pulled the pillow from the other side of the bed to her chest and buried her face in it, inhaling deeply. The only scent was that of detergent. The very night she had broken up with him, she'd washed everything that might smell like him. She wanted to go back and throttle herself. Paige stared up at the ceiling. The paint was slightly uneven. Once, Walter had likened the pattern right above the headboard to some sort of constellation. She'd thought of that the night everything fell apart, something she hadn't minded at the time but she used to internally justify her accusation that Walter always bored her with science.

Saying that the paint splash looked like Boötes wasn't boring. It was incredibly interesting. Paige never would have thought of that, and yet the moment he pointed out the resemblance, she saw it. That was  _creative_. That was the side of his brain he struggled with, and he was nurturing it by referring to what he knew. Wasn't that how people learned? Shouldn't she have been proud of him?

Of course, she stood by other examples she gave him. She did want to walk on the beach and have the words that passed between them be exclusively sweet nothings. She did want him to like her friends…although if she was perfectly honest, she was sadder that he was uncomfortable around them than she was mad that he didn't act like he wasn't. That had been yet another cheap shot. One that wasn't even something she'd been mad about and was simply holding back – though she knew that was an issue of hers, too. That point had been just plain unfair.

Open communication. That had been their mantra, ever since they'd first confessed that there were feelings there. Open communication. When they did it, it worked. Their relationship was progressing steadily after that initial confession, to the point where she'd even told him that thinking he had slept with someone who wasn't her made her feel an unpleasant sort of way, even though they weren't together and he'd had every right to have slept with Stella. His assurance to her that nothing had happened was just another thing that he didn't have to do. It was as if they were, even though they weren't.

Then he had tried speed dating as a way to better his social skills and that bothered her too, but she clammed up, flat out insisting that it didn't. Shortly after, Tim Armstrong had showed up, he hadn't told her that the way the SEAL looked at her bothered him, and then suddenly they were both seeing other people, he was ruining her dates and she was telling him she loved him only because she knew he wouldn't remember it.

He'd done some stupid, immature things. But all those things happened because communication stopped, and that had been no one's fault but her own. She had tipped the domino to start that chain reaction.

The first few months of their relationship was like that as well. Laughing and kissing and cuddling and sex and holding hands just because they could…and  _talking_. They talked a  _lot_  those first few months. They were honest and they were vulnerable and they learned about each other in a way that wasn't possible without that kind of dynamic. Then, after Christmas – after he had nearly  _died_  – they stopped again. She knew part of it was he was worried about how she would react to knowing he dreamed about Florence. And she knew part of it was she let him believe the dream didn't bother her when it did. After that, anything regarding Florence was going to be a touchy subject, and so when she found out about the lecture, even though he hadn't told her to spare her feelings, she…overreacted.

 _I had a right to be angry he lied._  She stood by that, even though she knew the white lie concept had to be confusing for him. But was that worth a breakup over? Was that worth throwing every tiny little miniscule issue she'd had with him over the past eleven months in his face and then saying she was done?

_I know you're keeping something from me. I don't care what it is, I love you._

Cabe once said, in a rare moment that he spoke of his daughter, that you know your true feelings for someone more when you're afraid to lose them than in any other situation. She knew Walter was alive and well, but what if Team Scorpion 2.0 went out on some mission tomorrow and he was killed and she would find out via the  _news_? After everything they'd been through together, she would learn of his death the same way she learned of his precarious situation on the cliff's edge way back in the first year they knew each other.

She would like to believe that Cabe would call her. But what if he didn't?

What if Walter died because he was trying to be the hero, as he always did, but this time it was too much to ask of someone who was short four members of what had been a finely tuned problem – solving machine that had saved the entire human race on more than one occasion? What if he needed one last breath of oxygen to get out of a toxic building? What if he needed someone to talk his dying brain into saving his own life? What if the next time he was in a tornado, he was the one who wasn't secured, and no one was there to hold his hand and promise they'd never let him go?

_How did we let something so good end so badly?_

She wasn't even sure if the thought was about Scorpion or their relationship.

Paige pulled the pillow back to her chest, just for something to hold. Ralph had asked her several questions about her conversations with Walter at the picnic, and he seemed pleased when she said they were going to try to be friends. She smiled to herself as she remembered. The kid's questions were so pointed and methodical, as if he was doing research for an experiment.

That thought made her wonder why the things she found so special about her son were the things she claimed she liked the least about Walter.

_I don't care what it is, I love you._

That was all that had been in her head when she thought he could die. That they needed to talk to each other again, and everything would be okay, because she loved him and she knew he loved her. All they needed, to get through anything, was the communication they seemed to always shut down despite how well doing it worked.

_I love you._

Well, that didn't matter now. He just wanted to be friends.

* * *

Florence reached out and dragged her finger across her phone screen, knowing exactly where to place it to silence her alarm – again – without opening her eyes. She grunted at the alarm for good measure, then rolled over and curled up into a ball, nestling into the mattress.

She was exhausted. She supposed that was only to be expected; Team Scorpion was working with less than half of what they were used to, and although she was sure he would take offense if she pointed it out, Cabe really couldn't help with most of the heavy lifting. So to speak, anyway. For actual heavy lifting, Cabe was actually pretty useful. But when one part of your body started working harder than normal, the rest of your body went into overdrive to help, and you ended up tired. But just because it made sense that her brain was draining her body of energy didn't mean it was  _convenient_.

And her brain had been doing a lot of personal work too, in the past week.

Ever since the mixer.

She and Sylvester hadn't talked, at least not about anything important. He'd seen something on the news about a recall on her car, so he'd texted her to make sure she saw it. She'd said thank you, with an emoji that either looked relieved or carsick. She'd sent the message hoping that either the emoji meant relieved or that Sylvester would wrongly interpret it the same way she did.

She wanted to talk to him. She was confused and guilty and confused and…she couldn't remember if she'd already listed confused but she was probably twice as confused as she was guilty so it would work anyway. Maybe. She didn't even follow her own train of thought anymore. She blamed it on her overworked brain. They really needed to find a new mechanic or a new doctor soon, to ease some of the pressure and let the current team members catch up on sleep before she and Walter and Cabe started forgetting things. Fatigue was dangerous when it came to cognitive ability. That was how people in high pressure situations failed or died. She couldn't afford to forget anything.

And suddenly, she remembered something she  _had_  forgotten. Something she'd even written on her hand, in a code she'd made up in the sixth grade, as a reminder. Sitting bolt upright, Florence flung the covers off and ran for the door, slipping her feet into the only footwear she owned that she didn't need to tie. "Shit." She grabbed her bag and her keys and she was halfway to her car before she realized she was still in her pajamas, but she didn't go back inside. She couldn't. She was probably too late already.

"Shit," she said again, jumping into her car and fumbling to put the key in the ignition. Her watch was ticking, and she swore it was ten times louder than normal. "Shit, shit, shit."


	9. Chapter 9

Paige wasn't even sure why she still played Candy Crush. Did anyone else still play it? She herself had gone a long time without opening the app, but something about the colors relaxed her. She needed  _some_  sort of distraction from all the memories and feelings that were running on overdrive, and if color bombing orange made her feel happy or successful for a split second, fine. That's what she would do.

She glanced up when there was a rapping sound, wondering if that was her door or the other condo's. Sometimes it was hard to tell. She closed the app, listening carefully. The rapping started again, and there was no mistaking that it was for her. She set her phone on the table and got up, walking around the couch and pulling her hair up into a ponytail, hoping to hide from whoever was at the door that it hadn't been washed in a couple of days.

Paige wasn't sure who she thought might have been on the other side of the door, but she most definitely would not have guessed correctly no matter how many chances she had. She blinked. "Florence? What in the hell are you doing here?"

The greeting was angry, a weird mix of her feeling defensive and wanting to be on the offensive, but Paige almost immediately regretted it. Florence's eyes were red, her cheeks blotchy, and it was obvious  _something_  was wrong and Paige doubted the woman would come to her unless there was a very good reason.

She stood aside, holding the door open. "Come in."

Florence didn't say anything; she quietly obeyed, entering the apartment just far enough to clear the door and then turning back toward Paige, her arms straight down and her hands clasped together. She stayed quiet until Paige shut the door and turned back to her, and even when she spoke, her voice was barely audible. "Thank you."

Paige cocked her head toward the living area. "You wanna sit?"

"That would be nice."

Paige walked over to the couch, gesturing for Florence to sit wherever she wanted. Awkward as ever, Florence chose the middle cushion. Paige opted for the chair, pulling her legs up to sit butterfly style. "What's going on, Florence?"

She drew in a long breath through her nose and then let it out even more slowly. Paige waited. Finally, Florence spoke. "I might be pregnant."

" _What?_ "

A panicked look came over the blonde woman's face. "No! No, no, no! Oh my God, no." She held her hands up surrender style in front of her chest. "Paige, no, I swear. I swear on my life." Paige had leapt to her feet immediately following Florence's confession, but she felt her heart rate slowing down as she lowered herself back into the chair. Florence was shaking her head. "Paige, one hundred percent not his. We have done nothing. Nothing at all."

"Okay." She blinked, swallowed, and nodded. "Okay. Sorry. Have you taken a test?"

"It's too early to take a test."

"What about Plan B?"

"It's too late to take Plan B."

Ah. Paige tapped a finger against her knee. "You know you can take that for several – "

"It's still too late. I wrote a reminder on my hand, but I forgot, it…it just didn't happen, okay?"

Paige nodded. She knew how easy it was to have something important to do and simply not get to it in a timely manner. A thought occurred to her, one that might explain Florence's distraught appearance and distraction. "Uh, I don't really know the right way to ask this, but…"

"Nothing happened to me. It was consensual."

Bless the woman for understanding where she was going. "Oh, that's good at least." She tapped her knee again. "So you're in that holding pattern."

"That's why I came to you," Florence said quietly, looking down at her hands. "Because you understand."

Paige didn't exactly understand. She had been careful when she conceived Ralph. There was no waiting around for blood that didn't come. She found out about Ralph two months in when the tiny BuyT on her calendar reminded her it was time to restock tampons and she realized she hadn't been using them. But then there was that two – day period between her home test and the confirmation at the doctor's office and  _that_  was a nail biting few days.

"Paige, what do I do now?" She put her head in her hands.

"Well…" Paige wasn't even sure where to start. "Does…the f…does the person who would be the father if you're pregnant know about this?"

"I don't know how to tell him. Or even when."

"Well, I guess it would depend on your relationship with him. If he's someone who can support you through this time when you don't know, you could tell him so he can help ease your mind. But if you aren't in that sort of situation and you are pregnant, you have options, and if you don't want to stay pregnant I don't think he would need to know about it. But unless he's some piece of shit, he deserves to know if you're having it. It depends on what you're planning to do if a test comes back positive."

Florence nodded slowly. "I don't know what I would do in that situation, to be honest."

Paige got up and sank down on the cushion next to her. "I'll be here for you, Florence."

"Okay."

Paige paused before saying anything else, wondering if she should. Wondering if she could commit to what she was thinking. She took a breath. "Even if you're not pregnant. I've been petty toward you and that was wrong."

Florence looked up, biting her lip. No one spoke, or moved, for several seconds, and then she nodded slowly. "Thank you, Paige."

They looked at each other, the silence stretching out, but not in an awkward way, Paige thought. She thought maybe, finally, they were at an understanding. She hesitantly put an arm around Florence's shoulders, glad when the chemist didn't flinch of pull away. She didn't seem to notice at all, but Paige knew that when it came to this woman, no reaction meant she was okay with it.

Both women jumped when Paige's phone buzzed against the coffee table. "Excuse me," she said, reaching for it. "It's Sylvester, he wants to talk about…" she trailed off, phone in her hand, when she noticed the look on Florence's face. Paige pressed  _ignore_  and set the phone back on the table, before turning back toward the other woman with wide eyes. "Oh my God."


	10. Chapter 10

"Ralph, I don't know what that is you're drawing, but does it have anything at all to do with The Cyclone Trap?"

"It's Tyrosine. I illustrate animo acids when I'm thinking," Ralph said. "If there's paper in front of me, anyway. I'm thinking, I swear."

Patty shifted her weight, tapping her pen against her notepad. "Honestly I have a lot of crazy ideas, but thinking practically here is what's tricky. It's gotta seem organic."

Ralph sighed, pressing his hands against the table. "Hopefully more organic than that picnic went. There's been zero progress since then with my mom and Walter."

"They decide to be friends, right?" Patty said. "So…that's a start."

Ralph shrugged. "It's not like they've seen each other since. My mom's been acting weird the last couple days."

"Oooh!"

Ralph blinked, and Patty realized that she sounded a little too enthusiastic without context. "I mean," she said, "acting different, acting different in what way?"

"I don't know. She seemed kinda subdued after the picnic, and then the past two days she's gotten so…I don't even know how to describe it. She's  _off_."

Patty wrinkled her nose. "Well, we know why Sylvester has been off…"

"Oh no, she and Walter haven't…you know, they haven't." It was Ralph's turn to wrinkle his nose. "I still don't like thinking about that. But she's gone work straight home and back again the past week. So I know they haven't. Ugh."

"Ew, yeah, you're right, I wouldn't either." Patty shook her head. "So Sylvester is acting weird because he and Florence did it, Paige is acting weird but not because she and Walter did it because they didn't do it, and…we have no idea how Florence is acting or if Paige is acting weird because Sylvester told her something."

"And it's a topic they won't discuss around us because we're 'too young'," Ralph said, throwing up quotation marks. For a moment, Patty wondered if he was referencing her rejection of him earlier in the year, but he seemed to just be feeling casual annoyance. "Though I guess Sylvester was pretty open with you, yeah, we smashed, what does it mean, ya, ya, ya."

"First of all, he didn't say smashed."

"I know, I was listening. But you know that bird video? The, the one with – "

" _U want sum fuk_?" Patty said, mimicking the voice. "Yeah, I know it. It's funny. But Sylvester didn't say smashed, nor did he really go into the whole ooooh what does it mean, what happens now, ooooh…" she waved her hands around dramatically.

"So he…for the first time…with her…he loves her and yet…" Ralph shook his head so vigorously that Patty was worried he might hurt himself, then threw up his hands. "Adults are  _so weird_!"

"I guess maybe we just don't understand, being kids," Patty said thoughtfully, shrugging. "I know stuff is complicated, but we haven't lived it."

Ralph seemed to consider that for a few seconds – but not any longer. "No. This specific situation is weird and I think we can safely say it."

"Oh yeah. When you put everything together, it's weird as all get out." Patty tapped her foot. "What should we do next? We were joking about locking your mom and Walter in an elevator, but what should we really do?"

"Do we want to focus on them and leave Sly and Florence for a bit? Or should we go at this from both ends?"

"Well, did you have any ideas about Sly and Walter? Because we still need to talk about that."

Ralph shrugged. "Honestly? I don't know that that can be resolved without him and Florence or Walter and my mom – at least one of them – getting into a relationship. Both Walter and Sylvester acted badly toward each other, but they were like that because they were extremely reactive to other situations – my mom breaking up with Walter, and Sylvester's perceived rejection when Florence admitted to having feelings for Walt. I know we want to fix that relationship too…"

"But we need to focus on the romance first," Patty finished. "Okay. We need to keep up with both of them simultaneously. Think you can get over to Florence's lab? It would make more sense you being there than me, since you have a relationship with Walter."

"Wouldn't it make more sense that I get something together with my mom and Walter? I'm more relevant to both of them, too."

"Ralph, when I say simultaneously I don't mean literally at the same second."

Ralph paused. "Oh. Right."

She playfully tapped her pen against the top of his head. "You're supposed to be the genius here, kiddo."

"Not at  _this_!"

Patty laughed. "Okay, so you'll go over and just get a feel for how Florence is. Maybe casually bring up Sylvester?"

"Casually bring up the guy who she found out was in love with her in the middle of a huge blowup because he confessed it in an accusation to someone else right in front of her?" Ralph cracked a smile. "I'll do my best. What is your idea for Walter and my mom? We can't keep just facilitating them meeting up by accident or at some public event. They'll never talk that way. They'll just keep patting themselves on the back for being friends and then not talking until the next time. They need to actually  _talk_."

Patty thought a moment, staring at her notepad, then slowly lifted her eyes to Ralph's, eyebrows high. "Okay, you're gonna think I'm crazy, but…"


	11. Chapter 11

Florence knew he was coming. She'd specifically asked him over, and yet when there was a knock at her door and she yelled "it's open!" and suddenly he was there in the room with her, she almost lost her nerve. "Hi," she said, after what she hoped was only a brief period of silence.

"Hey. You said we needed to talk?"

"Uh, yeah, Sly…" Florence hoped he couldn't tell how her hands were shaking. How did one have this conversation? She should have waited until she knew or not.  _But then how would I tell him about…_

"Florence?"

She realized she'd trailed off and was just staring at him. Shaking her head, Florence cleared her throat. "Okay, so…you and me. At the mixer."

"Uh huh."

"I, uh…"

"We should talk about it," Sylvester said, "though I don't know how to start."

"Well, that makes two of us," Florence said. "Again." She wrung her hands. "I know I have to say a few things, though. For starters, I hope you haven't been wondering too much about what it meant." At the look on his face, she realized how poorly she'd phrased it. "I mean, I'm not saying it wasn't supposed to mean anything. Just that I hope you don't think I was using you as some way of dealing with pent up frustration…regarding Walter. That night was you and me. No one else was in that room."

"Was…" Sylvester hesitated. "Was it all okay? Like…I know neither of us had anything to compare it to, but…I would hate for your first experience to be…"

"Oh no," she said. "Nothing wrong there."

He cocked his head. "So you…had a good time?"

"Oh yes," Florence said with a nod. "To use a modern colloquialism, you rocked my world."

Sylvester looked surprised. "Oh. Good. I uh, I think the colloquialism to use there is… _right back atcha_." He lifted his hands, making awkward finger guns.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. They say…people romanticize the concept of your first time, and after Megan died I was sure if it ever happened it wouldn't be with someone I cared about. Because I was sure I would never care about someone again. And I know you don't feel the same way I do, but I'm still glad it was with you."

Florence felt her cheeks pinking up and she broke eye contact, looking down at her feet – wondering if she'd be able to even see her feet in a few months. She looked back up at Sylvester. "Okay, but there's more going on than that."

He looked confused again. "Okay."

"We didn't use protection and I didn't go get anything. Not…it wasn't on purpose. I definitely was intending to. But – "

"You're  _pregnant_?" His voice faltered on the second word and he stared at her, eyes wide.

"I don't know. It's still too early to know. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said anything. Because I might not be. And then none of this would matter."

"No, no. I'm glad you told me. I'm involved in this, too, regardless. If you have to wonder, you should have someone thinking about it with you."

She nodded. "Thank you."

"And if you are going to have…I mean, I don't know what you would do, but if the  _test_  is positive, I want to be there for you," he said, sounding confident. "I know you don't want a relationship with me, but I hope you'll let me be there for you, regardless of what decision you make about it."

"I think you're wrong."

He stopped, blinking and cocking his head again. "What? What am I wrong about?"

"A – about the, the thing about me not wanting a relationship with you."

Sylvester licked his lips, looking unsure – and it's not like she blamed him after how hesitant she'd sounded. "What?"

"I don't…I just…" She stepped toward him, reaching out and taking his hands. "There's a lot of things I don't know, okay? About feelings and relationships and everything like that. But ever since the mixer I haven't been able to stop thinking about you, Sylvester. And not because of…not because of what may or may not have resulted from that night. But because I realized that I like how this feels." She lifted their hands slightly to emphasize her point. "I like how I feel when you kiss me." She gulped, still feeling nervous even though the scariest confession of the day had already happened. "I want to do what we did at the mixer again. And I want to see you and talk to you and go places, just the two of us. And like I said…lots of things I don't know. But I do know that those things that I want are things people do in relationships. And I also know this might feel totally out of nowhere to you since just a few weeks ago I was all about someone else but…" She shrugged. "It's like when you take a sip of that filtered water. You don't know you want it, but if you give it a try, you follow up that sip with the whole glass."

"Are you calling me filtered water, Florence Tipton?"

She rolled her eyes. "It's a metaphor."

The look on his face, one of affection and thrill, was contagious, especially when he moved his hands to her hips as he stepped even closer and slowly began to lean down toward her. A week and a half ago, she'd kissed his lips. Now, he kissed her smile. "I love you," he said when their lips separated, reaching up and stroking the side of her face. "I know I'm way ahead of you in that respect, but..."

"I think I just might catch up."

"So you like hearing it, regardless?"

Florence nodded. "It sounds nice." She rose on her tiptoes, wanting to kiss him more, and he wrapped his arms around her, holding her close as their lips met again. Florence shivered, still not used to how pleasantly exhilarating it was to be close to him. She slid a hand up into his hair, wanting to hold him in place so he had to keep kissing her, because him kissing her felt better than she thought anything could feel, until very, very recently. Her other hand was on the side of his neck, and she pressed her fingertips lightly against his skin as he slid a hand up from near her waist to between her shoulder blades and then back down.

She remembered watching a show with her parents where the awkward college student had his first sexual experience and then turned into something of a fiend. She remembered feeling awkward and uncomfortable and swore that she would never become someone who was fixated on anything but science.

She decided that because this was directed at Sylvester specifically, because she had spent the better part of the morning on science, and because if she  _was_  pregnant who knew how much morning sickness and aches and exhaustion might get in the way, she was still technically keeping that vow even though the more they kissed the more pinning him between her and a mattress was all she could think about. Attraction was weird.

Sylvester grunted quietly against her mouth when Florence sucked on his bottom lip while running her nails lightly across his scalp. "What are you trying to do there, Tipton?"

She moved her lips to his neck. "Make you stay."

Sylvester pulled back slightly, shifting his weight, and almost before she realized it he had scooped her up and began to walk across the room. Florence took advantage of the position, placing her lips back on his neck, searching for a spot she'd discovered the last time. Sylvester paused at one of her work tables. "Any chemicals on this?" He asked.

"Mmm, nope." She shimmied onto it, working her shirt and the sweater covering it up and over her head. Sylvester eased her onto her back, leaning over her to kiss her neck, then a little lower. Her hands in his hair and her ankles resting against his hip bones, Florence closed her eyes, sighing contentedly.

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is pretty much the wrap up on Florence and Sylvester in this fic. They will be in future chapters, but they're officially, as far as this story is concerned "fixed." I'm not going to reveal whether or not Florence is actually pregnant because I feel like that doesn't matter and I don't want it to seem as if their new relationship is contingent on that. If you as a reader want her to be pregnant, then she and Sly are having a baby. If you don't want her to be, then she's not. Next couple chapters will fix up Waige and Walter/Sly and I'll see if I can get the team all back together again. ;)


	12. Chapter 12

The biggest challenge was going to be getting his mom and Walter to the same place. After that, Ralph figured, it wouldn't  _really_  matter if one or both of them suspected what was going on. He knew they both still loved each other. They were also as petty and proud as the day was long, but it was only a matter of time before their feelings won out. They just had to force them to spend time together, alone, with no distractions.  _All that's left is logistics._

This park was the perfect place for him and Patty to work out the final details of their solution. It was a happy park. Paige and Walter had come here in happier times. So had Happy and Toby, and he knew Sylvester had brought Megan before she became confined to the hospital. Happy and Toby were working in New Mexico, and Ralph was fairly confident that that meant no one relevant would take note of him and Patty marching toward the bench where they had brainstormed just a few days earlier.

When the bench came into sight as they rounded a fountain, Ralph stopped, causing Patty to almost run into him. "What's wrong wi…" she trailed off when she saw the same scene that was currently making him gawk. "Holy crap."

Sylvester and Florence quickly jumped up, putting several feet in between them. What they had been doing was innocent enough – sitting on a bench talking – but his arm had been around her waist and she'd been sitting on an angle, her legs over one of his with her feet dangling down between his calves. It was intimate. It wasn't the kind of intimate either of them were known for.

"Patty! Ralph!" Sylvester said, the volume to his voice betraying him. "Hi!"

"Good afternoon, children," Florence said. Sylvester glanced at her. "What? I'm being cool."

"The phrase 'be cool' means be causal, not…that."

"How was I supposed to know that? There's multiple meanings."

"So, this is new," Patty said, and Ralph threw her a look of appreciation. He agreed it was best to jump right in and not let them beat around the bush.

"Uh…" Sylvester glanced at Florence, who gave him a small shrug. "Yes. Yes, it's new. Just a couple days."

 _Holy Hell, it actually worked._  Ralph mentally patted himself and Patty on the back. "Do the others know?" He asked, hoping his voice didn't give anything away.

"No," Florence said.

"We will tell them," Sylvester said, "we just want a little time to enjoy each other before everyone starts meddling."

"Enjoy each oth…ew," Patty said, wrinkling her nose.

"You know what we mean," Sylvester said. "Everyone always gets involved and we just want to see how things go without any outside influence."

Patty and Ralph glanced at each other. "You know, sometimes that helps," Patty said, shrugging her shoulders.

"I think that might be what ol' Walter and Paige need," Sylvester said. "It's silly how stubborn they're being, really."

"Says the guy that  _just_  figured his life out," Ralph said with a smirk. "But theoretically, if you were asked how you might go about trying to give my mom and Walter that little nudge…what would you suggest?"

"Ralph," Florence said, "it's not a theoretical question if you actually ask the question; that would make it – "

"Not the point here, Heather," Patty said sarcastically. "Here's the deal. Ralph and I actually have an idea as to how to get them figured out. But we're open to other suggestions since ours is kinda…cliché.

"What are you gonna do," Florence asked. "Lock them in an elevator?"

"Not if we can come up with something better," Ralph said with another shrug.

"Hang on," Sylvester said, "locking them in an elevator  _is the current plan_?"

"Not an elevator, per se," Ralph said. "We're thinking more like a room."

"Oh," Florence said, looking wary, "this is another party I'm not sure I wish to attend."

"You don't want my mom and Walter to get back together?" Ralph challenged, glaring at her. Florence took a step back and lifted her hands as if the boy was brandishing a weapon. "That's better."

"Though he be but little, he is fierce," Patty observed.

"How are you going to get them in a room together?" Sylvester asked.

"That depends," Patty said, folding her arms and raising her eyebrows. "Are you asking because you want to help or because you wanna be a little snitch?"

"Language!" Sylvester chided.

"She said snitch," Florence said to him under her breath.

"We were planning on getting them into…somewhere, and then blocking the door," Ralph said. "We can't just lock them in somewhere or they can pick the lock. But if something is braced against the door, then they can't really use math or science to get out. They'll have to wait. And if they wait, they will talk."

"And you think that will work?" Sylvester asked. "They're pretty…well…them."

"That's exactly why it will work," Ralph said confidently. "They're them. They're both idiots at times but neither wanted this to happen."

"My grandparents are moving into a new house in three days," Patty said. "We think we can lure them both there under the guise of needing to fix something. Then it's just a matter of getting them to step into the same place, and then bam, they're locked in, alone and out of earshot of anyone, until they talk things out."

"Do I want to know how much time and effort it seems like they've put into this?" Florence asked Sylvester in a low voice.

"Patty seems to have a notebook," he responded, "so my guess is no." He looked back at Ralph and Patty. "Can we help at all?"

"You can casually encourage both of them to come to my grandparents' house to help out," Patty said. "Just say you heard it from me, and you think it's great I want them to help, and that my grandparents will pay nicely."

"Okay, that would work for Sylvester," Florence said, "but how do I bring that up to Walter or Cabe? They don't know I have seen any of you."

"You're a smart lady, Ms. Tipton," Patty said. "I'm sure you'll think of something."

"I believe in you," Sylvester said, leaning down to kiss her cheek.

"Huh." She nodded. "Okay, I'll figure something out. Do you all think the team might get back together if…"

"If Walter and Paige get back together and he apologizes for relentlessly trying to get you in bed, then I think we could be – "

"Oh my God, he did  _not_ ," Florence snapped, stepping away from him. "I thought you were over that."

"I'm just saying…"

"And I'm just saying you were wrong about that. Okay?"

"I think this is where you say 'yes, dear' and let it go," Ralph suggested.

Sylvester glanced at Florence, who shrugged. "I'd take it."

"Yes, dear," he said, his tone exaggerating the words, and she rolled her eyes and grinned.

"Enough of that," Patty said. "You guys on board with getting Ralph's parents back together, or…"

"He's not technically my parent," Ralph said.

"Bullshit," Patty said. "He is in every way that counts." She looked at Sylvester, cocking her head. "Really? I  _actually_  swore that time."


	13. Chapter 13

Ralph sidled up to Patty and raised his eyebrows. "I thought you said your grandparents weren't going to be here."

"That is what I said. I was given incorrect information. That isn't my fault." She folded her arms. "At least the adults are pulling their weight by trying to get them out of here."

Sylvester was making a show of chuckling at something Lidia Logan had said. "You sure are a treat, ma'am," he said, briefly touching her arm. "Are you sure you and your husband won't join my girlfriend and I for lunch? You really shouldn't have to be stressing out so much about a shelving unit, I mean, we've already got the porch fixed up and our friend should have the walk – in completely stabilized soon. I know buying a new place is kinda scary…"

"We have been home owners before, Sylvester," Lidia said. "Our generation usually purchased before we were your age. This is the third place we've owned over the years. Second together, but we each had…"

"Is becoming parents any less scary when it's your second or third?"

"My, that's a good point." She glanced over at her husband. "Ed, I think we should take these folks up on their offer of lunch."

Ed Logan, standing with his hands on his hips as he observed Florence sealing a crack on the porch, wasn't listening to his wife. "You're sure that's gonna hold?"

"This porch will withstand any earthquake the fault can throw at us," she said, straightening up and wiping her hands on her jeans.

"Florence Tipton, huh? You related to that fella that fixed the lotto?"

She stared at him, her expression unchanging. "No."

"Grandpa!" Patty said, clapping her hands together. "Grandma is speaking to you."

"Eh?" He frowned at Patty, then turned. "You going on about something, Lidia?"

"I was just saying that I think we should go out to lunch with these young'uns after all."

"Yeah? I certainly could eat. But none of those vegan or gluten free restaurants all the kids are going to these days, you hear? I like my gluten and I like my animals."

"Neither of us are vegan and we don't have celiac disease," Florence said. "We can go wherever you'd like."

"Sensible Millennials," Ed said, throwing a wink at Lidia.

"They aren't Millennials, Ed."

"We are," Sylvester said. "I'm twenty – five and she's thirty – three. Millennials are currently twenty – one to thirty – six."

"No, that can't be right," Ed said, stroking his chin. "No, that can't be. Millennials are still in high school. You might be, but she's definitely Gen X."

Florence's expression still hadn't changed. "No."

"High schoolers are Gen Z," Patty said. "And that applies to both me and Ralph, so don't be hating."

"You're one of the good ones, sweetie," Lidia said with a smile.

"Remember that part in Pocahontas," Patty muttered to Ralph, "where she got upset that he called Native Americans savages and he was all  _ohhhh I didn't mean youuuuu_  and she's all  _of course you didn't, just my people_?"

"I didn't see that one," Ralph said. "But I feel you."

"Tons of things wrong with that movie but that part was… _on point._ "

"Are you two gonna come with us?" Ed asked loudly, "or are you going to hang out here?"

"We're going to stay behind," Patty said.

"If that's okay," Ralph added. Patty raised her eyebrows at him. Crap. He'd just given her grandparents an opening to say no, no, it wasn't okay, come with us, don't loiter at our new house.

"Suit yourselves," Lidia said with a shrug.

Ralph glanced over his shoulder. His mother was arriving soon. Walter was inside; she wouldn't think anything was weird driving up unless she saw Florence. Sylvester was safe, he was on Centipede, but she wasn't.

Sylvester seemed to pick up on Ralph's anxiety – of course he did. "Florence, get in the car." She understood, power walking to the vehicle and jumping in the back seat, ducking down out of sight. She had done so in the nick of time. Ralph breathed a sigh of relief when he saw his mother's car turn the corner and immediately flick the turn signal back on to pull into the driveway.

"Is this Paige?" Lidia asked. "That's a nice car. She's done well for herself."

"Hi there!" Paige said, leaning out the window as the car rolled to a stop. She jumped out of the car and walked toward them with a hand extended. "I'm Paige Dineen. Sorry I'm late."

"Oh, you're not late at all, honey," Lidia said. "The porch is all fixed up, we've got that nice fellow inside working on the walk – in, which they said you can help with…"

"Yes, absolutely," Paige said, shaking each of their hands.

"We sure appreciate'cha," Ed said with a smile. "My granddaughter has said so much about all of you."

"I was about to take them out to lunch," Sylvester said. "Are you okay to go in there and help?"

"Toby's already in there? Yep, sure am."

"Alrighty," Sylvester said, probably too loudly. "Let's get you two in the car."

"Where's your little girlfriend?" Lidia said, looking confused.

"Just come with me, that's right…" Sylvester ushered them away from Paige.

She watched them go, looking amused, and then walked up to Ralph and Patty. "That's hilarious," she said. "Did you hear? They think Sylvester is dating Happy."

It was hard for Ralph to not turn toward Patty and smirk.  _What's hilarious is you actually think Happy and Toby are here._

* * *

Paige stepped around the large dresser that was tucked in between the window and the corner, in front of the walk – in closet. This really was a cute house, with more room inside than it appeared to have from the curb. She could hear Toby moving around inside the closet as well as the creak of wood. From her understanding, they were just doing some fix up work that the older Logans couldn't quite handle on their own, which included putting some shelving up in the walk – in. It would be simple enough – she had done a lot of similar work herself after purchasing the condo. This house was definitely more run down, but the concept was the same.

She opened the door and eased inside. "Toby? I'm here."

"Huh?" The hunched over figure she'd seen upon entering straightened up and faced her. She thought she'd recognized that rear end.

"Walter?"

"Paige?"

"What are you – "

"How did you – "

They stared at each other, then Walter cleared his throat. "Good to see you."

"You too. Nice of you. To help Patty's grandparents, I mean."

"It was strange," Walter said. "Florence told me that she ran into Patty and was told that they were struggling on some things for the new house and she felt my skills would come in handy. I am not doing anything that plays to my specific strengths. I suppose they just heard  _man in his thirties_  and figured that would suffice. Not asking me to work on their computer systems is terribly inefficient, though."

"Maybe they don't have computers. They are…older."

"Everyone has computers nowadays."

"Well, they can ask you to help them with that later, then, Walter. I don't know what to tell – " A loud crashing sound came from behind her, and Paige jumped in the air, whirling around with a surprised shriek. She stumbled backward into Walter, whose arms came instinctively around her waist. They were shrouded in darkness.

"Door slammed shut," Walter observed.

"Let me  _go_."

He released her immediately and she stepped away, making a point of putting a step between them. "I'll get it."

"That sounded awfully loud for the door closing," she heard Walter comment.

"The door is closed, Walter, there is literally nothing else it could have been." She felt along the side of the closet, locating the door and turning the knob. She was met with resistance. "What…" She put her shoulder against the door and shoved. Still nothing. "Uh…"

"The damn dresser," Walter said. Her eyes were beginning to adjust and she saw him come up beside her, pushing on the door himself a couple times before nodding. "It fell against the door. It's probably braced in a way that it won't budge."

" _Shit_!" Paige threw herself against the door again. " _Shit_!"

"That won't do any good," Walter said. "We'll just have to wait until someone wanders up here and they can let us out."

"They went to lunch. Happy and Sylvester and Patty's grandparents."

"Well then, Florence can let us out."

"Florence is here? Do Happy and Toby know that?"

"To my knowledge, Happy and Toby aren't here."

"Hold, on, what?"

"I don't know. I was just told to come here and help out. I don't know what your team is doing."

"Shit, that's not even important. People can die from this, you know. I saw a Netflix documentary on it. Weird ways to die. Horrible acting, but this is literally what happened in one episode."

"Paige, people know we're here. They'll come when they get back from lunch."

"You want to spend an hour or more in here?"

"No."

"Then start yelling, dammit! Maybe a neighbor will hear us."

* * *

From just feet away, Ralph and Patty slowly turned toward each other as Walter and Paige's shouts for help echoed through the house. They smiled, slowly fist bumped, and then carefully, quietly backed away.


	14. Chapter 14

"Why don't you just use your phone to call someone?" Walter asked. "This banging on the door isn't doing any good."

"It's in the  _car_ ," Paige said. "Where's yours?"

"In the hallway with my bag. Why would you leave your phone in the car?"

"Why would you leave your phone outside the door?"

"I wasn't expecting the door to close."

"But this is a big closet. It's got to be the same size as Turtle's bedroom in  _The Westing Game_."

"Or where that Harry Potter fellow lived, yes?"

"They called that a cupboard, but I appreciate the attempted reference anyway."

"Sometimes the words can be used interchangeably. Like…"

"Walter, I don't care," she snapped. "I just want to get out of here."

"I know. So do I."

"Ugh." Paige walked to the back of the wardrobe and turned her back to it, leaning and slowly sliding down. She heard Walter moving about, and then another sliding sound as he came down next to her. "Stuck in a closet. What a cliché."

"I wouldn't know." He tapped his foot. "But I believe you."

They sat in silence for Paige didn't know how long. It couldn't have been more than a few minutes; Walter usually tried to at least make small talk if something was bothering him and this certainly wasn't an ideal situation for either party. She decided to speak first. "So how are things at work?"

"Fine. Steady. No complaints. You?"

"Fine. Busy. You?"

"What?"

Right. She'd asked him already. "So Florence been feeling okay?"

Walter stiffened, then cleared his throat. "I suppose she's fine. She's been pretty tired."

"Not surprising." Paige stretched out her legs. "She should know by next week, maybe end of this one, if she's pregnant or not, and fatigue could certainly explain…"

Walter coughed. "Wait, what?"

 _He doesn't know._  "Oops."

"Paige, you can't just throw that out and then not say anything."

"She and Sylvester hooked up at that chemistry thing a couple weeks ago and since they both…don't do that sort of thing, they didn't use protection. So she's basically counting down the days until she can take a reliable test."

"How do you know this?"

"She came to me the other day. Because Ralph was unplanned."

Walter was silent for a moment. Then, "damn."

"She didn't say anything to you?"

"No. We don't really…talk…about much, other than work."

"Really? I find that surprising, considering you guys…have so much in common."

"Paige, I told you already, multiple times, there is nothing going on there. Her feelings for me only mean anything if I reciprocate them, and I don't. And if she's sleeping with Sylvester, she's over whatever it was she felt for me."

 _I get that. But like…_ "But you don't want to at least see if…you and her can be friends?" Why was she asking this? Last time she encouraged him to be friendly toward her, well, they found themselves here.

Walter sighed. "You're really confusing, Paige. You know that? You encourage me to include her, to be friends with her, and then you get upset when I get close to her even though I swore up and down – entirely truthfully, I might add – that I felt nothing for her. Then you dump me, tell me I'm a glorified high schooler emotionally and that you were miserable being with me, and act confused as to why I'm not friends with the person who came between us. I don't get it."

Paige bit her lip. "I said some things I shouldn't have. That I didn't mean. I was mad. And I still  _am_  mad that you lied to me. I know you're not good at reading situations but you  _are_  thirty – three years old and you really need to be able to figure things out on a case by case basis. But I used my anger as an excuse to dredge up every little complaint I had about our relationship and that wasn't fair. Truth is…I really miss you."

"I miss you, too," he said quietly. "But I know it was all for the best. The last thing I want to do is make you unhappy. And you were unhappy, we shouldn't be together."

"No, Walter." She put a hand on his knee. "I wasn't unhappy. I was really happy. I just started fixating on the problems."

"When did you start doing that?"

"I think after that job where you guys were impaired. I liked you with your EQ spiked. And instead of thinking about how that's how you are on the inside and you just have a hard time expressing it, I started thinking of that Walter as a different person, and that made me wish I had that Walter instead of you. But that Walter  _is_  you. And you only show – showed – it to me. And that was special."

He grunted quietly. She was making him uncomfortable. He didn't  _know_. "Walter, I may be really out of line here, and I understand that, but…"

"No, it's okay." He gave a glow nod. "I'm glad we can at least talk without fighting."

He had absolutely no idea where she was going with this, and Paige felt her heart start to race as she realized he might not be receptive – at all – to what she wanted. "Um…when you were being buried in the sand?"

"Mmm."

"I told you that it didn't matter what you were hiding from me."

"You said that you loved me and we would be okay, no matter what it was."

There was a hint of hurt…resentment? Both? In his voice. "I did. I thought you weren't going to make it. And you remember what Cabe told us. You're always more honest when you're scared than when you're mad. When you're mad you look for anything to prop up your argument. When you're scared you feel things more genuinely. Like that saying? If you wonder what someone is most afraid of losing look at what they photograph, or something like that."

"I think you've utilized that quotation before."

"Probably." She wanted to squeeze his leg, but she left her hand simply resting on it. "Walter, I know you're not interested anymore, and I don't blame you. But I still love you. I always will. We've been withholding and lying a lot, but when I said you were the love of my life, that was completely true.  _Is_  completely true."

Walter was quiet. Paige didn't blame him. He was staring down at her hand and she wanted to pull it back, but she felt paralyzed. "I know things aren't the same as they used to be. But I just wanted you to know."

She hadn't realized until his eyes snapped up to hers how similar her wording was to the night of Happy and Toby's wedding. She couldn't see him too clearly, but he was looking at her curiously, his eyes soft but his jaw tense. She thought she might throw up.  _Say something. Just tell me it's over for good. I can handle it. It's this silence, this damned dark silence…_

"Are you saying all this to g – get this off your chest?" He asked. "Or do you want to, like…do, do you…"

She kissed him; it was brief and chaste; she was afraid of how he might react. But they looked at each other, eyes searching eyes, and then he was leaning in, sliding his hand along her jawline and putting his lips back on hers.  _Oh, thank God._  She put a hand on his chest, wrapping her fingers around the pocket on his shirt and scooting closer to him. They broke apart for air and rested their foreheads together, smiling in the dim light.

"We have a lot to work on, Paige," Walter said.

"I know." This would take a long time. They would have to communicate better and remember that love was work. But her happiness with Walter easily outweighed her moments of frustration. All love might be work, but this love was worth it. "I want to work on us with you."

"I would love that."

She kissed him again. It was annoying to kiss him like this, their backs against the back wall of the walk – in. It was uncomfortable and she was at a terrible angle. Shifting from sitting with her legs straight out to all fours, Paige maneuvered herself over Walter before settling on his lap. She put both hands on the side of his face, the tips of her index fingers stroking his ears as she kissed him more deeply. He put his hands on her hips and she sighed against his mouth. She missed this. She missed being close to him. She missed being alone with him.

"Paige," Walter said after a minute or two, gently pushing her back. "I don't think this is a good idea."

She hesitated. "Do you mean the whole getting back together thing or just me straddling you in this closet?"

"The second thing."

"You know this house is pretty creaky. We'll likely hear anyone coming up here in plenty of time." She cocked her head. She wasn't exactly planning this when she'd moved over him, but she couldn't deny that him shifting his weight underneath her right now didn't send a thrill right through her.

"Hmmm." Walter looked thoughtful. "I just have a question."

"Okay."

"Are you gonna kiss me, or not?"

She grinned, leaning forward and putting her lips back on his.


	15. Chapter 15

It was Florence's job to go let Walter and Paige out of the walk – in. She was lighter on her feet than any of the other adults, and "mom will recognize my footsteps." The chemist wasn't overly thrilled about the idea, despite her and Paige's newfound bond – or something like one, anyway – that came with both of them dealing with unplanned pregnancies.

Possibly, anyway.

"Go up and listen, hear if they're arguing. If not, move the dresser back into normal position – you can do that by yourself, right?"

Of course she could, Florence had told Patty. Unlike one of the people trapped in the closet, she focused on athletics.

"Cool. Then you tell them they're free. Don't open the door, because that may snap them out of talking if they're doing that. Just let them know they can come out when they want."

It was simple enough. But Florence stood at the top of the stairs, just down the hall from where Walter and Paige were trapped, anxious about the task because the last time she walked into a place where both of them were, the couple was mid break up and the team came apart. Of course, the team was already apart, so it wasn't like it could be worse…of course, she had thought that before, and life just kept surprising her.

She took a breath, steeling herself, and walked down the hall, being careful to tread lightly. Reaching the closet, she ducked down, getting between it and the door and bracing her back against it. Pushing back, the wardrobe rocked back into position, making less of a sound than she'd expected.

"Walter, Paige," she called out. "We're back, you're good."

"Just a minute!" came a muffled voice Florence recognized as Paige's.

"Maybe less," Walter's own muffled voice added.

Florence, frowned, opening her mouth to speak, then her eyes got wide and she closed it again, heading quickly down the hall and nimbly taking the stairs two at a time before rejoining the others in the living room. The four of them had rushed in ahead of Patty's grandparents, who insisted on inspecting the patch Florence had put onto the porch.

"Where are they?" Lidia asked, the others looking up from the couches.

"They're…" Florence pressed her lips together awkwardly. "They're coming." She cleared her throat, dropping her head and hurrying around the ottoman to sit beside Sylvester. "You're going to be nice, right?" She asked quietly.

He kissed her forehead. "I'm fine."

"You sure?"

" _Yes_ ," he said. "I overreacted. I'm ready to apologize."

"Do you two have something you'd like to share with the rest of the class?" Patty's grandfather asked.

"I, uh…" Sylvester stammered.

"No," Florence said bluntly.

"So," Lidia said after a long moment of silence, "kids, what were you two up to while we were gone?"

"Oh, just…hanging around," Patty said. "There's a dog down the street. We petted it."

"It was a nice dog," Ralph said.

"A super nice dog."

Florence had no idea how the two of them had apparently been plotting to reunite Walter and Paige for weeks without anyone finding them out. They weren't doing the best job of being casual.

"Oh, hey, Mom," Ralph said flashing a smile at the stairs. Florence looked up in unison with the others, seeing Paige walking down toward them, her hand on the rail. She was about halfway down when Walter appeared. Florence noticed Ralph's Adam's Apple bob.

"Hey, Ralph," Paige said. "Whew, that was a…harrowing hour."

"You guys managed to get stuck, huh?" Patty said.

"Wait, stuck?" Ed asked, frowning. "What's wrong with my closet?"

"Nothing," Walter said. "It's great. But you may need to move that chest thing away from the door."

"Oh, that's a good idea," Lidia said. "I think I read something about someone who died when something fell against a closet door."

Paige raised her eyebrows at Walter.

"That's awfully morbid, Lidia," Ed said.

"We're old, dear, if we don't have a healthy attitude about death…"

"Okay!" Patty clapped her hands together. "The important thing here is that nobody died."

"No," Walter said. "The important thing here, is that we're all here. Because…" he glanced at Paige, then walked around the couch where Patty's grandparents sat. "Sly?"

Sylvester stood up. "Walt, before you say anything…"

"No, let me say that…"

"I'm sorry, Walter," Sylvester blurted. "I shouldn't have accused you of trying to steal someone you didn't know I was in love with. And I should have considered Florence…realized it wasn't just up to us who she would be with. If anything I should have been angry about you cheating on Paige, because I thought that…"

Florence swatted his leg. He stopped and cleared his throat. "Uh, as evidenced by…that…I was in a messed up head space. And I'm sorry. You're my brother, okay? I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry, too," he said, glancing back at Paige before his eyes rested on Ralph for a long moment. He turned back to the younger man. "I shouldn't have insulted your relationship with my sister. I was hurt and confused and felt like I was falling in slow motion and I took it out on you. With a cheap shot. It's…it's a regret I think I will always have."

Florence glanced over at Paige. She was watching the two men with a small smile on her face, her hands clasped in front of her. Almost as if she knew she was being looked at, her eyes flickered to Florence, who felt a rush of anxiety and nearly looked away. But then, Paige's smile widened – just slightly. Her eyes were warm. Florence smiled back, feeling a rush of relief. They were going to be okay. It didn't matter if she was having a baby or if Monday's test would come back negative. She and Paige had a chance to, finally, really be friends.

Walter was extending his hand to Sylvester, but the younger man shook his head, stepping forward and pulling Walter into a hug. Sylvester's back was to Florence, so she had a perfect view of Walter's smile as he hugged back.

"So…Mom?" Ralph asked, raising an eyebrow at Paige. Florence felt another rush of relief upon realizing he hadn't put her awkward answer earlier into context.

"Walter?" Paige asked, after a glance at her son.

Sylvester released the older man, who walked back around the couch and stood beside Paige. She smiled at him. "Ralph, Walter and I, now, I don't want to make you any promises here, but…"

Ralph rocketed off the couch and into both of them, causing all three to stagger. Paige recovered first, Walter a moment later, and they wrapped their arms tightly around him.

Lidia leaned over toward her husband. "I'm not sure what's happening."

"Shhh," Patty said, putting a finger to her lips. "I'll explain later."

"Don't shush me, Patty," Lidia said, frowning. She glanced at Walter and Paige again, then looked back at her granddaughter. "But yes, I want the Hot Toddy."

"The phrase is  _I want the tea_ , Grandma."

"Is that a phrase?" Sylvester asked Florence.

"No idea."

"Ed, let's give these folks some minutes to talk," Lidia said. "Let's go see where we can move that dresser to."

"So, you guys are back together?" Patty said to Walter and Paige once her grandparents were safely up the stairs, her voice sounding casual enough.

"Uh, yeah," Paige said, and Florence noted how warmly they looked at each other as they released Ralph. "We are."

"And you guys have made up," Ralph said, glancing between Walter and Sylvester.

Walter nodded. "Seems so."

"And those two are in a relationship," Patty said.

Florence felt Sylvester's arm slide around her waist. "Yes, we are," he said, tugging her closer.

"Is the team getting back together?" Ralph asked, looking up at the adults next to him.

"Uh…" Paige cleared her throat. "I mean, we have a lot to work through. Happy and Toby would have to agree, but…"

"We hope so," Walter said. He looked over at Sylvester. "I hope you will consider returning to the garage, Sly. I know I would love to have you, and I don't want to speak for Florence, but…"

"I'd consider it," she said, glancing at him with a smirk.

"Nothing is set in stone," Paige said. "But we're hopeful."

"Hopeful," Florence said. Hopeful. That word described an emotion that none of them had felt in too long.

"Yeah." Paige leaned over and pressed a quick kiss against Walter's neck. Ralph glanced at Patty, a knowing smirk on his face. She coughed, giving him a discreet thumbs up.

Sylvester leaned over, his lips near Florence's ear. "Good thing they had those kids working behind the scenes. They're so damn stubborn they never would have worked through this in a timely fashion on their own."

She smirked, turning to look at him. "I know, right?"

**Author's Note:**

> I hated the name Team Centipede and Sly calling them the Human Centipede just made it a million times worse (how they made THREE of those movies is beyond me) so please know every time I type that word in this fic I will cringe.


End file.
